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I’ve found over the past months that writing this stuff down has helped, and if it helps another cancer sufferer to read it, so much the better, so here’s a summary of my journey so far…
UPDATE June 2025
Still all clear after latest blood work and blood tests. Next scan and bloodwork due in August.
So here we are, more than 18 months on now from surgery, still a couple of stone lighter, still tiring a bit too easily for my liking, but a whole lot stronger both mentally and physically than I was before the op.
And most definitely still here.
Cancer’s arse?
Kicked.
THE STORY SO FAR
A background note to start with… this isn’t my first brush with cancer…I had a tumor removed from my guts back in 2019. At the time they said they got it all out of me and I didn’t need any follow up. I felt good and strong after recovering from the surgery and went about my life.
On the 4th of August 2023 I didn’t feel well, took myself to the docs… and later that day found myself in hospital. I had a gall stone, a big, nasty one.
But that’s not the subject of this horror story…
While treating me for the stone, they also discovered I had liver cancer… a tumor, a huge tumor, on over half of my liver. I had an op to try to remove the gall stone. That failed. Another op a few days later also failed so they decided the stone would have to stay where it was and I needed a bile duct bypass. I also needed something done about the liver…
Three weeks after being admitted I was sent home with a bile-drain in to wait for a date for the big surgery…
Finally got that arranged and on 16th November went in for surgery.
I was on the table for over ten hours (the surgeon was knackered by the end of it). They cut me open from between my nipples down to above my right hip and got to work. They cut out fifty percent of my liver and bypassed my bile duct. When I came to I had a lot of pain and an enormous scar, but was told I was on the mend. After a week recovering I was sent home.
Ten days later I felt ill again. Back to the docs, and got rushed to ER…the surgical wound had got infected. They drained 3 pints of noxious puss out of my body, pumped me full of antibiotics, left a drain in to keep the puss from building up… and again I started recovering.
Another week later I got home, in time for a quiet Xmas.
It was slow and steady going into late January when I had a chat with the surgeon, the puss-drain finally came out, and a CAT Scan showed that I appeared to be all clear… they thought they’d got all the tumor and my liver seemed to be healing nicely. Still waiting at that point for biopsy results to confirm the fact.
Meanwhile recovery continued. After the drain came out I immediately started feeling better and stronger and I was able to get about a lot easier, meaning I got more trips out of the house, more driving got done and things were approaching normality.
UPDATE 24th JAN 2024
had a recent video chat with the cancer specialist who’ll be the person I’ll follow up with from now on.
She confirmed that all my biopsy results they took from various places during my surgery were all clear, it looks like they got all the tumor out of me, I don’t need any chemo or radiotherapy, and I’ll have a CAT scan every 4 months or so just to make sure I’m staying all clear… first one of those will be around the end of April.
Now here we are, almost four months on now from surgery, fifty pounds lighter, still tiring a bit too easily for my liking, but a whole lot stronger than I was before Xmas.
And most definitely still here.
Onwards!
UPDATE: 25th April 2024
Saw the oncologist today. All good news from the first checkups since the surgery. CT scan shows my liver recovering nicely, no signs of any cancer, and blood work is all clear. Blood work every 4 months from now on, CT scans once a year.
UPDATE: 13th June 2024
Start of regular checkups with my family doctor. Still all clear of cancer, bloodwork is good and my liver and associated scarring all healing nicely. Haven’t put any weight back on, still getting easily tired…but it beats the alternative.
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